An Interview with Cait London

By Darlene Ryan

USA Today best selling author, Cait London, has seen more than 60 of her books published in her twenty-year writing career. She’s written romance, westerns, romantic suspense and now she has a new trilogy with a paranormal element. A Stranger’s Touch, the second book in the series will be released on March 25.

The Aisling triplets, Tempest, Leona and Claire have each inherited psychic talents. Descendants of a Celtic seer and a Viking Chieftain, the three contemporary women are connected by their senses, so intimately they can’t live together. First-born, Leona, is a powerful precognitive. Tempest can soak up the history of an object held in her bare hands. And last-born, Claire, is an empath, able to read others feelings.

Q: Your new series is part suspense, part paranormal. How did the idea for the series evolve?

Cait: The idea for this trilogy evolved several years ago. It was quite challenging because there is a story arc with multiple threads flowing through each book until the last. Yet each book has its own independent plot and subplot, the threads weaving along the story. To actually begin writing the different dimensions was thrilling. I have three daughters, so the relationship between the siblings and between them and the mother came easily. Writers have much research built into them, ready to be tapped and you’ll find much of me in my books. I’m basically an artist, so I understood much of what Claire (At The Edge; Claire for clairvoyant) would feel about texture and color when creating her handbags. Tempest (A Stranger’s Touch; Tempest for her fast-moving personality) is a sculptor, and I understood the visualization there. Also, I’ve read Viking history for years, and my sister and I like to think we have some psychic abilities. I’d
met a couple of psychics, who were extremely interesting, and one had worked with police. The pieces of the fabric were there, just waiting to be brought to life. BTW, I interviewed a tremendous amount of resource people while creating this trilogy.

Q: Could you explain the basic set-up for this trilogy?

Cait: The story arc begins with the first book, develops through the following stories, and ends in the last book. While each book has an individual story, the threads that flow through all books will end in the third book. For writers, an arc could be dangerous: If the first book does not launch well, that could be detrimental to sales of the succeeding books. I knew I wanted to write the stories. But I also knew the dangers. Thinking back, this trilogy may have evolved naturally from the eerie suspense of Flashback and Silence the Whispers two of my favorite books. Quite a lot of work went into this set-up, including a very careful chart of all the names and their meanings. Not only story threads, but important items particular to this family are highlighted. The same newspaper article flows through all three books and is critical in explaining the actions of the triplets. BTW, the name Aisling dates back to that Celtic seer and it is a professional name assumed by the triplets’ mother, a professional psychic. These books are NOT paranormal in the sense of shape-shifters, vampires, etc., rather the stories involve telepathy between the siblings, etc.

Q: At the Edge is the first book in the series. Claire is the last born of the triplets and she’s an empath. How does that affect her life and the story?

Cait: As the youngest, Claire is more sensitive and protected by her older siblings. She’s very delicate and must live an isolated existence, away from too much contact with others. She lives in rural Montana—one of my favorite places to visit, and her life gets exciting and complicated when Neil Olafson (Viking name) moves in next door. An extrovert, Neil is an intrusion into her quiet, secluded, creative world. The conflict of the personalities, her need to help Neil seek his abducted son, causes Claire to venture out of her safety zone. The story thread in this set-up book begins when Claire is attacked. Throughout the story she becomes stronger, and faces her own past. At the Edge is the launch book and introduces the family.

Q: A Stranger’s Touch, the second book in the series will be out the first of the week. This is Tempest’s story. What are her abilities?

Cait: Tempest’s gift (or curse) lies in her naked hands. When the “middle-born” holds an object in her naked hands, she understands its history: who held it, what they were thinking, and a little of their history. Therefore, Tempest must always wear gloves. She’s a metal sculptor and exceptionally curious. She’s also very physically active, on the go, and one who lives on challenges. Tempest is able to flow between all the strong personalities in her family, because she is not that sensitive—unless she takes off her gloves. A Stranger’s Touch has several mysteries, plus that ongoing thread, and Tempest is set to discover all of them as she seeks to unwrap a cold-case murder. Tempest is a hunter, in danger from her past, the present, and the thread circling her family. Set near Lake Michigan, one of my favorite retreats, and also the setting of With Her Last Breath.

Q: The final book is the trilogy will feature first-born Leona. Can you give us a preview?

Cait: For Her Eyes Only (10/08) is based on Leona’s resentment of her inherited abilities. She is determined not to be like her professional psychic mother, or her grandmother. She refuses to live her life in fear of the dangerous threads that have wrapped around her family. Not until her family is endangered does Leona come into her namesake’s protective mode. Since childhood, Leona has been labeled as the potentially strongest of the clairvoyants. And she comes into her own in For Her Eyes Only. Leona, the lioness, will have to enter abilities she’s denied all of her life to save herself and her loved ones. This is set in Lexington, KY, a place I visit often.

Q: Do you consider settings to be characters?

Cait: Yes, definitely. I chose each one of these settings very carefully. One of the threads has to do with water/fog and/or the lack of it. Settings are very important to me and I’ve actually visited all of them, or fictionalized where I’ve been on site.

Q: Is there the possibility of more books about these characters?

Cait: Readers have already asked that I continue this series, using the mother, Greer, the psychic who often works with police. At this time, I have no plans for a prequel.

Q: You’ve been writing romantic suspense for several years now. Do you plan to continue?

Cait: I always love stories that have many layers and a little bit of the psychological. Romantic suspense is the perfect place for that. My books aren’t for everyone. Romantic Suspense can be defined as anything, and there are many tiers. My writing leans more to emotional conflict and play between the characters, rather than forensic and police involvement. I write to my personal preferences as a reader: less graphic, less detective/police/military. As a writer, I’m highly involved with my career and have changed sub-genres several times.

Q: What is it about suspense that appeals to you as a writer? Is it the struggle between good and evil? The opportunity to write in depth about people facing life changing events? Or just the chance to make sure the good guys win in the end?

Cait: I love unwrapping the story, the causes, the journey and the end. I love writing about people who are not always perfect and who do make wrong decisions. Perhaps the flawed interest me more. The writing challenge comes from creating a balance between the protagonists and the worthy antagonist. I love exploring the characters’ doubts and how they make their life-decisions. What happens next, dropping twists/dead bodies, red herrings, I love them all. I suppose exploring the motivations of characters interests me the most. I’m prone to write about small town secrets.

Q: You’ve written romance, westerns, romantic suspense and now paranormal suspense—more than 60 novels by my count—is there a genre you haven’t tried that you’d like to tackle?

Cait: I’m working on that one . (Smiles.)

Q: Before you became a writer you were an artist. What skills as an artist do you feel you bring to your writing?

Cait: Callouses. When I started writing to sell, I understood that not everyone is going to be happy with my story ideas. I’ve come to believe that writing to sell is very different from the love of writing alone. Writing to sell can mean a lot of compromises within the storyline, these requested by the buying editor. Basically, when painting a canvas, or writing a story, you’ve invested a tremendous amount of time and creative energy into the piece. When trying for publication, you’re sending your child out into the cold cruel world. You may get back that arrow through the heart, or interest. But writing is like painting in that there are different POVs, and perhaps another critic will like your work. It’s a matter of luck, of endurance, of regimen, and realizing that not everyone will love your baby. Or perhaps your baby is flawed J. After a certain amount of publication, you gather more balance between what story you want and what the editor may want to change. Writing and painting are the same in that there is a background fabric and highlights brought forward. The background emphasizes and textures the foreground, which would be the main story line.

Q: What’s your writing routine like?

Cait: I write rough draft very early in the morning. It’s like my nest is uncluttered, no phone calls, etc. Take a break, answer e-mail, business stuff, etc., and pretty much editor or do business the rest of the day. I ran a straw poll some time ago and questioned professionals how much time they spent in writing, and how much on the business end. The average was about 75% on business, which included promotion, networking, groups, etc. So that 25% writing time is very dear. When I am on deadline, I can write throughout the day. I am more regimented and work on a writing schedule, but there are always life-interuptus situations or galleys or copyedits, etc. I do my own website and blog and ad layouts and bookmarks, mailing addresses, etc., so that all takes a tremendous amount of time and breaks in my schedule. A story usually begins to really palpitate at the end and then I edit constantly to streamline.

Q: How have you managed to be so prolific? Do you have any writing advice to share?

Cait: I’m just full of it. Of stories, I mean. I’ve studied plotting and conflict and keep a ready supply of words that incite stories. I also keep story ideas in my toybox, called Nuggets. I’m big on lists and databases, so there is always something simmering, so far as story ideas. I can get them from anywhere, i.e. a windmill missing a paddle in KS, an Amish girl riding a paint pony alongside the road, my own background, items around the house, and I keep a lot of visuals around.

And I have lots of advice you can find at my website, http://caitlondon.com or my blog, http://caitlondon.blogspot.com. Here’re some basics:

1. When considering an offer, never answer immediately. Brand this into your brain: “Can I get back to you? I’d like to think about it.”
2. You get out of writing, what you invest into it. Energy spent equals proportional results.
3. Write every day. Write something. When I started, I sent out queries or thank-you notes (for rejections), or a reader letter every Monday.
4. About thank-you notes and courtesies: Always thank editors for their time, even if you aren’t exactly happy with them. Stay pleasant. The professional writing community is actually very small and networks.
5. When receiving criticism, do not chop up your story right away. Stand back, let your ideas cool and then come back to the piece.
6. Accept that all writers have different levels of talent. Spark and Talent play huge parts in career professionals. Therefore, do not compare someone who has had years of publishing behind them, several editors and tons of experience to your own work. This can be defeating. Do not defeat yourself by reading an acclaimed author amid your own creative struggles.
7. Write the piece straight through. Then edit. But push the story out with all of its vibrancy, before editing. When editing, balance the weight of the characters. Very important.
8. I have never been involved in critique groups. I think they work for some writers, but not for others. It’s a different strokes thingie. But remember that publication moves really quickly, and you may be contacted by an editor for an overnight rewrite. You should have some confidence in yourself alone, without consulting with a group. Your group may not always be available within a night or a day, so be prepared to write on your own.
9. If you don’t know how to write clear, effective business letters, practice. Work on business language, and use business language in e-mail when addressing an editor. This seems basic, but unfortunately, many writers do not possess good business language/writing.
10. Address Revenge, Possession, and Escape. I got those fine items from Jayne Ann Krentz. Add Needs. Who has it? Who wants it? Why? What?

A New Voice: C.C. Harrison

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

C.C. Harrison’s first novel, The Charmstone, was published in 2007 to rave reviews. Set in the desert southwest, the book was praised by Tony Hillerman for its “insider’s view of the Navajo culture.” C.C. is the author of hundreds of articles and short stories but is now living her dream of being a published novelist. She makes her home in Arizona.

Q. Writers use pseudonyms for many reasons. Would you mind telling us why you chose not to use your real name for fiction writing?

A. I decided to use a pseudonym because I didn’t want my real name all over the Internet, and my reason for that would make a good plot for a suspense novel (which I will write some day). But it’s nearly impossible to remain anonymous in this day and age, and within a month of my book’s release, a writer friend mentioned me in her blog using my real name as well as my writing name. There were some consequences as a result of that which, so far, and happily, were minor and quickly resolved. But C. C. Harrison is a registered legal trade name and I think it looks great on a book cover.

The down side of using a pseudonym is that friends and family don’t know what to call you. My daughter now introduces me as C. C. Harrison.

Q. Romantic suspense is perennially popular, drawing readers of both mystery and romance. Did commercial prospects play a role in your choice to write in this subgenre, or are you simply writing what you love to read?

A. Basically, I’m writing what I love to read. When I was young, I loved the early romance novels full of mystery and intrigue by Phyllis Whitney, Victoria Holt, Norah Lofts, Mary Stewart. By the time I began writing my first novel, that style of romance was long, long out of fashion. But I’m greatly influenced by them, and by Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. Today, the female leads in those books are seen as weepy, wimpy and naïve, but I saw them as courageous. Courage is being afraid but doing it anyway. In every story, the heroine was thrown into unfamiliar circumstances to face mysterious and unpredictable events that were out of her control, but she always found a way to survive. And isn’t that what romantic suspense is today? Despite Scarlett O’Hara’s flaws and weaknesses in some areas of her life, I thought she was a kick-butt, take-charge survivor.

Q. You teach a workshop titled “Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?” Which are you? How did The Charmstone develop?

A. Oh, I’m a plotter, compulsively so! I need to know where I’m going. I don’t even leave my house without a map, and if I’m going over 100 miles, I need a Triptik!

Seriously, I’ve always been interested in the process of writing a book, how novelists actually did it. I’d been widely published in nonfiction, but that was easy. I just took information someone gave me, did a little more research, and wrote an article. Fiction was something else. I truly thought there was only ONE way to write a novel, and I needed to find out what that one way was. I’m embarrassed to admit that misperception blocked me for a long time. At the time, I didn’t have any writer friends, didn’t belong to any writers groups, so had no one to ask. Joining an RWA chapter opened up a whole new world when I learned that every author had a different way of putting a book together, and that they pretty much made up their own process.

My workshop on Plotters or Pantsers is geared to beginning and early career writers who may be struggling with finding a process that works for them. I talk about the many different ways published authors actually put a book together. It’s about process, not technique.

The Charmstone developed out of my experiences living in Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation as a VISTA (now called AmeriCorps) volunteer. That was truly a life-changing experience for me, and the characters and plot just sort of came together. I knew a week after I arrived on the reservation that I was going to write a book set there and pretty much what the main plot points would be. I didn’t begin the actual writing until some time later, when my assignment was over. After I left the reservation, I worked on an archaeological dig at an ancient Anasazi site (which gave me more plot ideas), bought a house in the Four Corners area and lived there for a few years. During that time I drafted three novels, one of which was The Charmstone.

Q. Was The Charmstone the first novel you attempted? How long did it take you to write it, from idea to finished book? Would you tell us about your road to publication, once you had a completed manuscript?

A. The Charmstone was my first novel. (Okay, I’ll admit I do have one in the closet that hasn’t seen the light of day, but I plan to resurrect it at some point.) The road to publication for The Charmstone was quite circuitous involving multiple lost or misplaced submissions, a change of acquiring editors, you know, the usual. But it all worked out for the best in the end because I used the time when nothing seemed to be happening to tweak it into a better book, and outline or draft two others. Life is what you make of it and things always happen in their own time.

Q. Will you continue to use Navajo characters in your books? How have your Navajo friends reacted to your portrayal of reservation life in The Charmstone?

A. My second book, Running from Strangers, due out in September 2008 from Five Star, doesn’t have Navajo characters, but the story is set in Durango, Colorado which is in the Four Corners area just off The Rez. It’s the story of a child advocate who finds herself on a run for her life with a child in her care.

My work in progress, working title Navajo Girl Gone, takes the reader back to the Navajo Reservation with heroine Keegan Thomas as she searches for people in a fifty-year-old photograph, one of them a child who she’s told was kidnapped by missionaries and never returned. In the book, she meets a lot of resistance from the Navajos for poking around in the past. They tell her that people who dig up the past end up digging their own grave.

However, in reality, the Navajos are at heart very hospitable people. When I first went to the reservation as a VISTA volunteer, I think they were a bit leery of me, because historically, the intent of some of the white people who came to the reservation was to exploit the Indians despite their promises of help. In the end, I made some wonderful friendships that have survived over time, and I go back to Monument Valley often. And, yes, my book has been very well received there; at least I haven’t heard any complaints so I guess I got it right. My biggest fear was not getting the culture and history correct.

Q. What advice would you offer to other authors who want to write about cultures not their own?

A. I think it’s very difficult for authors to write about a culture not their own, and the only way they can do it and get it right is to live it. I could never have written about life on the Navajo Reservation if I hadn’t actually lived there and interacted with people on a daily basis. Even so, I have to spend a lot of time on research.

Q. Your second book was inspired by your experiences as a CASA (court-appointed special advocate) in the child welfare system. To an onlooker, this kind of work looks emotionally draining. Is it also rewarding? What have you learned from working with underprivileged and abused children? Have you seen many positive results of your work?

A. For me, being a child advocate was extremely emotionally draining. I had to limit the kinds of cases I worked on. I wouldn’t take any case that involved child sexual abuse of any kind. What did I learn by working in the child welfare system? Nothing good. It’s shocking and unbelievable what people do to their children. Looking back, I guess I could say there were a few moments of joy and reward, but only a few. Lack of money, staff, and effective management are huge problems in most child welfare systems.

Q. Has being a published novelist changed your life? Did you know what to expect, or have you had some surprises (good and bad) along the way?

A. No surprises, not really. It’s pretty much what I expected. The biggest change it’s made in my life is I can’t go to the supermarket in sweats and grubbies anymore. I have to dress halfway decent because people in my community now know who I am and recognize me from signings and seeing my picture in the paper. Basically, I’m living the kind of life I’d always hoped to live -- a published author, living alone, secluded, surrounded by my books and papers, writing more novels.

Q. Do you think you’ll write a series in the future, or do you have more fun with stand-alone novels?

A. Every book I write I think I want to be part of a series because I fall in love with all my characters and don’t want to let them go. So far, instead of writing a true series, I try to bring a few characters from previous books into my new books. In the book I’m working on now, I brought in at least one character from Running from Strangers. The next book after that will be set on the Navajo Reservation and I plan to bring in several characters from The Charmstone.

Q. Do you plan to attend any mystery conferences in 2008 where readers can meet you?

A. I don’t have as much time for conferences anymore, but I will be at the Desert Rose RWA Desert Dreams Conference in Phoenix on April 4-6, 2008, and also RWA National in July. So please, everyone, I’m very approachable. It’s okay to stop me to say hello. Also, check out my website at www.ccharrison-author.com and read my blog for news and updates.